𝔐𝔢𝔪𝔬𝔦𝔯𝔰
𝑅. 𝒮𝓊𝓀𝓊𝓃𝒶
Synopsis: In some irony of nature, an immortal teaches you the ways of the living.
❀﹒Notes: Manga spoilers. Angst but y'all know I gotta be funny about it . Sukuna himself is a trigger warning. Suggestive humor.
𓍯 W.C. 2K
The list of cons about the lifestyle of shamans is never ending; ‘certain death’ being the one at the very top of the catalogue in big, bright letters. But at the fear of sounding morbidly optimistic, you think the perks balance it out. The money is good, for one. That’s what keeps most in this profession where everything is trying to kill you at every corner. And if someone asks, you’d probably state the same reason. It’s the easy thing to say, something that doesn’t require a lot of thinking.
But you like to think.
Which is another, if not the primary reason you don’t mind the frequent reminders of your mortality. There isn’t too much work and more often than not, you can do absolutely nothing but kill time.
It’s nothing sophisticated or anything of the sort. In fact, most days you think about absolute nonsense. Jump from one thought to the next or stay and mull over one for hours. In your head, you’re in control; not the higher ups, not Gojo Satoru but you.
Lately, your thoughts seem to always end up at one place. At first you found it somewhat irksome but you’re not one to fight these things too hard. Just let the stream flow in the direction it wants. That’s likely why you’d be a terrible protagonist; you’re passive and dull.
Sukuna however, is neither of those things. That’s likely why you didn’t mind being around him as much as a lot of people did. You’re not stimulating enough in the sense that he wants to toy with you. Neither is it your nature volatile enough to let him get under your skin.
That’s not to say the start of it wasn’t rocky. The first time you held him captive in his own domain, it was raining hellfire in more ways than one. In some depraved way, you’d enjoyed the show, you suppose. Given you a power trip because you were untouchable in the belly of the beast.
Only natural to taunt him. Hardly serious, in fact most of the things you poked at were rather harmless, or at least they were in the start. He was easier to bother then. Over time he must have built some sort of immunity so you had to alter the dose accordingly.
He’d snarl and bare his teeth like some rabid animal; like a dog. You wouldn’t even laugh, only smile as if his misery was mildly diverting. That was probably the worst part. Then like clockwork, Sukuna would swear vengeance upon your ancestry and describe in chilling detail what he’s do once he’s at the height of his power again. It was almost cartoonish to you; the supervillain describing his evil schemes.
At some point the narratives shifted around to accommodate you as a special mention, until eventually they began to be centred around you entirely.
He’d go on these vividly comprehensive diatribes. How he’s going to skin you alive and use it as the carpet to his bath house, all while beaming since he knew you find aggravation to be particularly compelling amongst all his reactions.
You politely asked him to stop self-projecting his fetishes. Safe to say that did the trick to have him frothing at the mouth.
Sometimes you’d leave him be to his devices. Coexist and nothing more. The first few times it was because you weren’t in the mood to talk for whatever reason. Sukuna had eyed you warily the first hour, tried to get something out of you the next few.
“Come on brat,” he pokes at you with what you assume is a fibula of whatever poor creature it might have once belonged to, now reduced to little more than home décor. “Is this a new scheme to get on my nerves?”
You’d shot him a half-hearted glare and somewhat whiny ‘go away’; one of your less creative comebacks.
“Is it your time of the month?”
“No,” you roll your eyes. “And even if it was, it’s none of your concern.”
“It is when a good drink is going to waste.” The casualness with which he said it was what put you off more than the words themselves.
“What,” you ask, somewhat wide eyed. Maybe the sleep deprivation was catching up.
“What?”
For better or worse, you were shipped off on a mission the next day so you didn’t have to unpack that with him.
Yuuji Itadori is declared dead by the time you return. Sukuna, by extension, to some degree. It’s tragic, of course but hardly anything you never witnessed. People come and go in a profession like this one.
The day Yuuji wakes up in the morgue, Sukuna throws a tantrum. Naturally, you find yourself back on babysitting duty. He doesn’t bother berating you this time around, only grumbling an ‘about damn time.’
You realize soon enough that he just wanted someone to share the results of his latest lunacy episode. He lays great emphasis on the part where he rips his shirt off, or Yuuji’s , more accurately. Gives you a real life replay even though you very much did not ask for it. Proceeds to casually breeze over the part where he rips out his heart. You find no reason to stretch out that part, specially not when you’re currently in a way, inside the boy’s subconscious.
♒︎
That’s probably when things really eased up. Felt less like you’re on the clock, expected to keep a millennia old fiend in line and more like a troublesome roommate. The kind who never does the dishes but gives the people next door a piece of his mind when they get carried away in debauched pastimes and you’re either not confrontational enough to deal with them or not in the mood.
“What do mortals do to pass time?”
You hold back a yawn; almost certain he chose to ask something right in this moment because you were just about to fall asleep peacefully. “They do each other.”
“Brazen, but what do you do to pass time?”
An owlish blink before the jab clicks. “Funny.”
♒︎
He’d taken to story telling at some point. It was a particularly uneventful week and you’d been crabby over being stuck inside in the most literal sense. Something about burning down villages and tearing jujutsu sorcerers limb to limb. You wonder to yourself at some point if publishing them would be worth it but shove the idea to the back of your head for the moment.
Sukuna’s Bizarre Adventures
It’s gratifying, you realize. Listening to him recall events. He never justified anything. Unlike most who did horrible things, Sukuna wasn’t deluded. Didn’t see himself as some divine justice. What he says, goes. An unjust however simple enough way to go about things.
Losing track of time was easy. In fact, often he’d have to shoo you away. You’d leave the domain, only to discern it’s already dark when you started early in the afternoon. Other times he’d regard you with a coy sort of look before asking when you last blinked.
He must be fucking with your head. It’s like saying you forgot to close the valves in your veins. But then you would blink, realize it’s sort of uncomfortable. You chalk it upto placebo.
In listening to Sukuna talk about himself you realized some things of your own. Primarily that you liked it. A little too much in fact because you come to become conscious of your habits over time. More specifically the one to eavesdrop. It’s at the most arbitrary places too; that group of high school kids talking about some upcoming club recruitment event. Or the elderly resident in your neighborhood on the call with his daughter, asking if she could make it home for the holidays.
It doesn’t have to be scandalous. Hell, sometimes it’s utterly mundane. But it’s really not about entertainment as much as it was about inquisitiveness. The things people do, the things they say, their regrets and their lies; the stories that never make it to paper because they’re boring yet make people what they are in present day.
But more importantly, you realized you hardly have anything of your own to say. Actually, that is somewhat of an inaccurate way to phase it. It’s more like you don’t want to, or didn’t want to.
The sorcerer life is hard not just because you can lose yourself but because you can lose the people around you. You’d taken that lesson too hard, shielded yourself too much and somewhere in the process of surviving, you’d forgotten to live.
You’d envied the intimacy your peers shared with each other. It wasn’t like you didn’t get along with them or anything but things with you were always surface level. Plans would be made but you’d back out more often than not, some excuse or the other ready. They’d sigh, tell you it’s fine, there’s always the next one. More of a formality than anything. They’d come to expect it from you.
Now well into your adulthood, the rift is too wide and you’re stuck on one side with no clue what to do about it.
The what ifs of life are what occupy your headspace. You wouldn’t say it’s lonely, per se. But it does get boring sometimes.
You’re similar in that way at least, you and Sukuna. That’s another reason why your time together doesn’t feel like as much of a chore as it is. Sukuna isn’t going to turn up his toes anytime soon. In hindsight, you jinxed that one too, huh?
♒︎
When the thoughts began, you’d felt like you’d committed a cardinal sin. Comrades fallen, humanity at stake and yet the one in your ruminations was the one who had consideration for nobody but himself.
But who prays for Satan?
It’s a derisory outlook. One that made you sure you were slipping away too. Going demented after all the recent events. It would hardly be the first case of psychosis amongst sorcerers.
The first time you pass by the shrine, you only spare it a look. The second time you slow down, the third you stop and by the fourth, you find your will having eroded enough to enter. A saunter around the courtyard confirms your only company are the rodents scurrying about and termites infesting the wood.
Strangely enough, no curses around either.
The face of the deity is almost entirely eaten away. In your mind, it looks like him. There’s incense sitting in a box somewhere to the left of the statue. You take out the lighter and put it near the end of it despite not counting on them to light up.
One does, despite all odds.
Deeming that satisfactory enough of a result, you push it into the stand and just stand there for a second. You try to recall any prayer from your childhood but your mind draws a blank in that moment. Getting performance anxiety in front of a block of wood has to take the cake as far as self esteem issues go for you.
“I was in the area,” and now you’re talking to thin air. “Just thought to drop by and say hi.”
That sounds like something you’re supposed to say to a summer situationship and not a once revered being but it’s the thought that counts.
Barely ten steps from the door, your phone vibrates with a notification. You fish it out, expecting it to be a promotional message. Instead, it’s Shoko’s name that lights up the screen.
An invitation to go drinking with Utahime and Mei Mei.
You don’t have to think a whole lot before punching in a reply and hitting send with an affirmation of your presence.
If you’re going to have to say goodbye, you better make every minute with them count. Maybe every once in a while, one needs a millennia old demon and a war to learn the simplest lessons in life. On second thought, it might just be the promise of booze.
Divider credits to @cafekitsune. Images from Pinterest.
Characters belong to Gege Akutami.
